Ok so I've noticed for the past two days now that Maybelline (my new little girl who seems fairly young) has developed a habit of swimming back and forth near the back of her tank. She's obviously full of energy but I'm not sure what to do to help her? I'm going to hopefully get my 10 gallon tank by the beginning of March.

I have her in a cycled 5 gallon tank:

EDIT: I forgot to say that I put a pierce of paper in the back (I colored her name on it :) ) I figured it would help her if she had at least one side covered up instead of wide open. I want to get another girl (I was going to get her off of aquabid but the person hasn't been getting back to me :( so hopefully I'll get the new girl so I can have them side by side). I do plan on doing a sorority tank soon at least with 4 girls

Last edited by Roemgie; 01-28-2013 at 10:49 PM.
Reason: To add more information

Is she swimming back and forth by the paper? Perhaps she is seeing a reflection, or trying to figure out what it is. Try removing it for a while and see how she reacts. Instead of putting backdrops behind my tanks, I just put decorations, that way there is no possible reflections coming from the backdrop that could possibly cause stress. My female LOVES it when I change out pictures, and trinkets behind her tank, she'll spend hours looking at them from every possible angle. When she sees me putting something new back there, she gets very excited and swims from the front of her tank and to the back, and front, like she's pacing, waiting for me to put the new decoration up. It's quite cute actually. Then when I finally get something put back there, she stops and stares at it for a long time, and kind of twists her body into different angles while she looks at it.

She's probably glass surfing. She sees her reflection and doesn't realize it is herself so she wants to swim with it. I have a male and 3 females that do this constantly along with 2 albino cories. There is really nothing you can do to help other than covering up sides of the tank, but with glass tanks there will always be a but if reflection coming in regaurdless.
As long as she doesn't get/keep stress lines I wouldn't worry.
And depending on how long you have had her it might just be a phase.

Is she swimming back and forth by the paper? Perhaps she is seeing a reflection, or trying to figure out what it is. Try removing it for a while and see how she reacts. Instead of putting backdrops behind my tanks, I just put decorations, that way there is no possible reflections coming from the backdrop that could possibly cause stress. My female LOVES it when I change out pictures, and trinkets behind her tank, she'll spend hours looking at them from every possible angle. When she sees me putting something new back there, she gets very excited and swims from the front of her tank and to the back, and front, like she's pacing, waiting for me to put the new decoration up. It's quite cute actually. Then when I finally get something put back there, she stops and stares at it for a long time, and kind of twists her body into different angles while she looks at it.

Ok so I did that and she's still swimming back and forth. I think she's just very bored and lonely :( I'll put a few things behind her tank to give her new things to look at every so often. I'm hoping that the people from aquabid will get back to me shortly!

She's probably glass surfing. She sees her reflection and doesn't realize it is herself so she wants to swim with it. I have a male and 3 females that do this constantly along with 2 albino cories. There is really nothing you can do to help other than covering up sides of the tank, but with glass tanks there will always be a but if reflection coming in regaurdless.
As long as she doesn't get/keep stress lines I wouldn't worry.
And depending on how long you have had her it might just be a phase.

That would make sense, I think she's lonely and bored and even with the paper moved she is still going for it. I got her from petco on January 21 so it hasn't been long at all. She also looks like she's growing more fin. But should I leave the paper up to hopefully help or will that not do anything?

If she's still doing it, then it's not really going to change anything by putting it back up. It could be the way the lighting is hitting the back of the tank, and she sees a reflection with or without the paper. If that's the case, there's nothing you can really do about it.

If she's still doing it, then it's not really going to change anything by putting it back up. It could be the way the lighting is hitting the back of the tank, and she sees a reflection with or without the paper. If that's the case, there's nothing you can really do about it.

I feel like she is just bored because she's not really putting her head towards the tank but more constantly going up when she goes left and down when she goes right (a very large circle). She's gotten better about it but still does it from time to time :/ but thank you for your advice!!

Yeah, sounds like shes just trying to get her reflection. Eventually she should learn that its futile and give up

I feel like she may just be bored because she's not swimming at the side like she does when I show her something new or I move in front of her. She's more just doing a big circle. But she's gotten better about not doing it so often...of course at this moment she decided to do it lol